Empresa de sismica estrangeira adquire dados de bacias brasileiras pouco exploradas buscando relacionar com Africa

ION Extends BrasilSPAN Seismic Program
ION Geophysical Corp. | Monday, January 11, 2010 (Fonte: Rigzone)


ION Geophysical has successfully acquired an additional 28,000 km of
regional seismic data covering Brazil's southern Santos, Pelotas, and
northeastern Equatorial basins. The recent expansion to the BrasilSPAN
program makes this one of the largest 2D seismic datasets in the ION
BasinSPAN multi-client data library. The BrasilSPAN program, now
containing a total of 42,000 km, provides the oil and gas industry
with the first contiguous dataset of Brazil's coastline, yielding a
more complete understanding of the regional geology of South America's
Atlantic Margin and providing pertinent information related to
possible Tupi analogs in the petroleum systems offshore West Africa.

The Pelotas addition to BrasilSPAN was designed to provide an improved
understanding of the southern Santos and Pelotas basins, an area that
is relatively under explored despite the existence of a thick sediment
column. The 11,000 km Pelotas dataset, in combination with ION's
CongoSPAN program offshore Angola, should provide geoscientists with a
deeper understanding of the continental break-up between Brazil and
Africa by highlighting potential conjugate ties in the southern
Atlantic.

An additional 17,000 km of data was acquired along Brazil's
northeastern Equatorial coast to better define the continental margins
of northern Brazil. This expansion to BrasilSPAN will provide the
industry's first depth-migrated dataset of the area and is significant
because of recent discoveries along the conjugate margins of Ghana and
Sierra Leone in West Africa.

Ken Williamson, Senior Vice President of ION's Integrated Seismic
Solutions group, commented, "The expansion of our BrasilSPAN dataset
can provide the basis for an improved understanding of the hydrocarbon
potential offshore Brazil and can also provide clues into the
continental break-up along the Brazilian and West African margins.
While helping to guide exploration decisions in Brazil, our BrasilSPAN
dataset can also be extremely important for E&P operators in Africa as
it reveals striking similarities in the structural framework of the
petroleum systems on both sides of the Atlantic Margin. For instance,
preliminary results have revealed rich source rocks capable of
generating hydrocarbons and a variety of potential trapping mechanisms
throughout the geologic column in both the Santos Basin of Brazil and
the Kwanza and Lower Congo Basins of Angola."

Pre-stack time migration (PreSTM) and pre-stack depth migration
(PreSDM) data is currently available for the Pelotas program. PreSDM
data for the northeastern Equatorial extension is scheduled for
delivery in the first quarter of 2010.